Brighton Technical School History

INTRODUCTION

 The Brighton Technical School for Boys, located in Berwick Street, Brighton, Victoria, officially opened in 1922.

The Brighton Technical School for Girls, “Cora Lynn”, located at 45 Cochrane Street, Brighton, Victoria, officially opened in 1924.
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Brighton Technical School, renamed Brighton Bay Secondary College in 1989, was closed by the Victorian Education Department in 1991.

​The Schools were built as a consequence of the forward-thinking, dynamic pioneers of Brighton, who had a desire to offer the students of their district the opportunity to receive a Public Secondary School Education.   Most other districts in the suburbs of Melbourne only offered students a Public Primary School Education.  The Citizens, Councillors and Politicians of Brighton understood that a child’s quality of life depended, to a large extent, on the quality of their education.  So, in 1912, they embarked on a ten years campaign to achieve their goals.
 
The Boys’ School was a large imposing double-storey red brick building set in acres of open space, providing the opportunity to extend the school and provide spacious sporting facilities.
 
The Girls’ School, “Cora Lynn”, was located in a Victorian era villa, surrounded by well established gardens, which included many magnificent trees that were already decades old when the school opened.
 
This history of the Brighton Technical School, covers the story of the evolution of the education policies that impacted on the curriculum, also, the implications of the decision to make the School co-educational.   They were dramatic changes, which conflicted with the core philosophies expressed by the founding fathers.
 
To the dismay of many students and teachers at the School, and former students and their parents, the School was closed against the will of the people in 1991.   This book explores the names of the people responsible for the closure, and demolition of the School, to make way for an exclusive housing development, known as St. James Park Estate.